I wish wisdom were contagious, like colds. If so, my Long Story Short team and I would be wise beyond our dreams. Over the last decade, we’ve been face to face with well over 200 leaders and interesting citizens, listening to their personal stories of success and failure and lessons learned. As we look ahead to a new year and new resolve, I thought I’d share with you a few leadership traits and skills touched upon by guests on the program:

Ability to Distill What’s Most Important

This is the ability to filter ideas and aspirations through the context of one’s purpose, goals and resources.

Example: The outgoing head of Punahou School, Dr. Jim Scott, deals with students, teachers, parents, administrators, donors, alumni, trustees and untold complexities. Every day, he said, every third person who walks into his office has a great idea for him.

How does he set a course? He recalls his baseball days. As a student athlete at Punahou and Stanford University, he was better at pitching than hitting. When he became a teacher who also coached baseball and he wanted to know more about hitting, he picked up a book by one of the greatest hitters of all time, Ted Williams. Williams wrote that the secret is knowing what pitches to let go.

Dr. Scott said: “I got to thinking about the Ted Williams School of Management and wondering what pitches not to swing at, which good ideas do you not go for…From where I sit in my office, I’m looking for synergy, congruence. I’m kind of a broker of ideas, and when I see patterns and recurring themes, they become good. And that’s why an idea sometimes takes time to bake, to form.”

Battle-hardened Confidence

This is the conviction that you can and will make a tough decision, because you’ve done it before.

Example: Mark Dunkerley, the former CEO of Hawaiian Airlines, a brilliant strategist and turn-around master in a fiercely competitive industry, commented: “I’m always struck by how difficult a time people have in making decisions. Making decisions, based in part on analysis, but never with perfect information, and largely based on the accumulation of one’s personal experience, is something that I’ve always felt comfortable with. That’s not something that keeps me awake at night.”

Fearlessness

This is a willingness to take bold action, even though it turns the status quo upside down or inside out.

Example: Civil rights icon Minnijean Brown Trickey, visiting Hawai‘i from Arkansas, was one of the Little Rock Nine – nine African American teenagers who in 1957 integrated a white school, Central High, amid riots. They kept going to school despite hatred and harassment.

“Somebody had to do it,” Trickey said. Explaining that the civil rights movement was youthdriven, she said: “The young people were doing things that the grown-ups couldn’t do, because in fact they would lose their jobs. And they didn’t put us there, we put ourselves there and asked them to come with us. There’s a line in a freedom song (that says) ‘if you don’t go, don’t hinder me.’ And another line is, ‘If my mama don’t go, I’ll go anyhow.’ It was about seeing a different vision, and hoping that it didn’t stay the same.”

There are many life takeaways in the Long Story Short files, and I’ll bring you more from time to time. Also, I invite you to view or read transcripts of the interviews on our website at pbshawaii.org/lss

We at PBS Hawai‘i are grateful to you, as a loyal supporter, for helping to provide this rich resource.

This episode is an encore presentation of a HIKI NŌ special that first aired in the summer of 2017– HIKI NŌ Focus On Compassion: Self-Identity –hosted and co-written by HIKI NŌ alumna and Wai‘anae High School graduate Crystal Cebedo. This encore presentation includes a brief update on Crystal, who is majoring in Marketing and Human Resources at Menlo College in Atherton, California on a full scholarship.

The HIKI NŌ stories in this special look at compassion for self-identity in terms of culture, gender, body image, ethnicity, or appearance. They include:

“Calcee Nance” from Kaua‘i High School on Kaua‘i: the story of a teen mentor at the Boys and Girls Club whose instinct to nurture and feed others was inspired by her relationship with her late mother.

“Kimberly Yap” from Lahainaluna High School on Maui: the story of a young woman whose decisions about her future are complicated by her multicultural identity as a half Filipina, half Micronesian born in Kiribati and raised on Maui.

“Mark Yamanaka” from Mid-Pacific on O‘ahu: a feature on Mark Yamanaka, a Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award-winning musician, who overcame internal conflicts about being a non-Hawaiian playing Hawaiian music. He has since been embraced by the Hawaiian music community for his commitment to learning and singing in the Hawaiian language and his skillful guitar playing.

“Cosplay” from Waiākea High School on Hawai‘i Island: a look at how cosplay – dressing up as characters from books, movies, or your own imagination – gave a group of high school students the freedom to express their true selves in a creative and fun way.

“Body Image” from Maui Waena Intermediate School on Maui: a look at how the images of females onscreen and in magazines had a negative impact on one girl’s self-image and self-confidence.

“Through Rachel’s Camera” from ‘Iolani School on O‘ahu: the story of a young woman who uses her camera and art to combat traditional gender stereotypes and to express her identity as a feminist and activist.

“Pride and Diversity” from Moanalua High School on O‘ahu: a feature on how the Honolulu Pride Parade and Festival helps support and encourage LGBTQ youth who often don’t see themselves reflected in their school or local communities.

“Aurora’s Story” from Wai‘anae Intermediate School on O‘ahu: a look at how one teacher uses her experience with trichotillomania, an impulse disorder that results in her pulling out her hair, to teach her students about self-acceptance.

At PBS Hawai‘i, education is a year-round priority and our mission. On November 7-14, we give particular attention to transformation in American education, including a network of San Diego charter schools that’s already breaking the mold, and a discussion with top local leaders who are charged with taking Hawai‘i’s educational systems into the future.

As a child who played a lot of baseball in rural Virginia, Ted Dintersmith wanted to be a Major League Baseball pitcher. By serendipity, he says, life took him on a completely different path, when he got a job at a high-tech startup. For 25 years, he made a name for himself in the venture capital realm, before leading the charge in America as an advocate for transforming education. He is Executive Producer of the documentary Most Likely to Succeed and a co-author of the book by the same name. In the 2015-16 school year, Dintersmith visited all 50 states to meet with parents, students, educators and politicians, and encouraged communities to work collectively to re-imagine school and its purpose.

Most Likely to Succeed examines the history of education in the United States and reveals the shortcomings of conventional education in today’s modern world. The documentary also follows students at High Tech High, a network of San Diego charter schools that promotes hands-on, project-based learning, with the goal of producing real-world workforce and life skills.

Leadership from Hawai‘i’s major education systems convene around the Insights table for a high-level conversation about how to prepare students for the future employment landscape in the Islands, and how they can work together in doing so.

Livingston “Jack” Wong is Chief Executive Officer of Kamehameha Schools, overseeing its significant endowment and educational mission. Kamehameha Schools serves more than 48,000 students across three K-12 campuses, 30 preschools and many community education and scholarship programs. Wong is a graduate of Punahou School – the Kamehameha CEO has said he sometimes gets teased about this. He goes by “Jack” to distinguish himself from his father, a pioneering transplant surgeon in the Islands. Though both of his parents were in medicine, Wong pursued law instead. He joined Kamehameha Schools as its senior legal counsel in 1997.

The third of four Focus on Compassion HIKI NŌ episodes compiles archived stories that center on the theme of compassion for self-identity. This four-episode series is hosted by Crystal Cebedo, a 2016 HIKI NŌ and Wai‘anae High School graduate who is currently attending Menlo College in Atherton, California. The stories in this episode look specifically at compassion for self-identity in terms of culture, gender, body image, ethnicity, or appearance.

The outstanding HIKI NŌ stories in this Focus on Compassion show include:

“Calcee Nance” from Kaua‘i High School on Kaua‘i: the story of a teen mentor at the Boys and Girls Club whose instinct to nurture and feed others was inspired by her relationship with her late mother.

“Kimberly Yap” from Lahainaluna High School on Maui: the story of a young woman whose decisions about her future are complicated by her multicultural identity as a half-Filipina, half-Micronesian born in Kiribati and raised on Maui.

“Mark Yamanaka” from Mid-Pacific on O‘ahu: a feature on Mark Yamanaka, a Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award-winning musician, who overcame internal conflicts about being a non-Hawaiian playing Hawaiian music. He has since been embraced by the Hawaiian music community for his commitment to learning and singing in the Hawaiian language and his skillful guitar playing.

“Cosplay” from Waiākea High School on Hawai‘i Island: a look at how cosplay – dressing up as characters from books, movies, or your own imagination – gave a group of high school students the freedom to express their true selves in a creative and fun way.

“Body Image” from Maui Waena Intermediate School on Maui: a look at how the images of females onscreen and in magazines had a negative impact on one girl’s self-image and self-confidence.

“Through Rachel’s Camera” from ‘Iolani School on O‘ahu: the story of a young woman who uses her camera and art to combat traditional gender stereotypes and to express her identity as a feminist and activist.

“Pride and Diversity” from Moanalua High School on O‘ahu: a feature on how the Honolulu Pride Parade and Festival helps support and encourage LGBTQ youth who often don’t see themselves reflected in their school or local communities.

“Aurora’s Story” from Wai‘anae Intermediate School on O‘ahu: a look at how one teacher uses her experience with trichotillomania, an impulse disorder that results in her pulling out her hair, to teach her students about self-acceptance.

This program encores Saturday, Sept. 23, at 12:00 pm and Sunday, Sept. 24, at 3:00 pm. You can also view HIKI NŌ episodes on our website, www.pbshawaii.org/hikino.

The second of four in a special HIKI NŌ Focus on Compassion series emphasizes the unique and sometimes misunderstood relationship between parent and child. This four-episode series is hosted by Crystal Cebedo, a 2016 HIKI NŌ and Wai‘anae High School graduate in her second year at Menlo College in Atherton, California.

The outstanding HIKI NŌ stories in this Focus on Compassion show include:

–“Father Coach” from Hongwanji Mission School on O‘ahu: the story of a father and son whose bond and mutual respect developed and deepened through their additional roles as coach and player.

–“Parental Guidance Required” from Wai‘anae High School on O‘ahu: a look at how the tough love of a parent has sharpened one student wrestler’s competitive spirit and prepared her with the skills and mindset for life outside the ring.

–“Racing Sakamotos” from Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School on Kaua‘i: the story of how a father’s passion for drag racing passed down to his children and united the entire family around the discipline and detail of this exhilarating sport.

–“Lucy’s Lab Creamery” from Saint Francis School on O‘ahu: the story of a young entrepreneur who uses his ice cream parlor to simultaneously honor the memory of his late mother and raise money for charity.

–“The Comedy of Life” from Maui High School on Maui: a look at the mental and emotional adjustments made as a daughter becomes the caretaker of her mother with Alzheimer’s.

–“Silent Passion” from Nanakuli High and Intermediate School on O‘ahu: the story of a mother, who despite her inability to hear, enthusiastically supports her son’s passion for singing, dancing and theater.

–“Anti-Meth Teen” from H.P. Baldwin High School on Maui: the story of a teen whose father’s past addiction inspired her volunteerism and gave her a platform for helping her peers rise above difficult circumstances.

This program encores Saturday, Sept. 16, at 12:00 pm and Sunday, Sept. 17, at 3:00 pm. You can also view HIKI NŌ episodes on our website, www.pbshawaii.org/hikino.

Roughly one in five people lives with learning and attention issues (LAIs) like ADHD and dyslexia. This special follows the transformative journey of three young people as they travel cross-county to find others who, like them, learn differently and have used that difference to build lives doing what they love.

Located in an impoverished Mojave Desert community, Black Rock Continuation High School is an alternative school for students at risk of dropping out; Black Rock is their last chance. Extraordinary educators believe that empathy and life skills, more than academics, give these underserved students command of their own futures.

With a collective purchasing power of $3 trillion, people of color are quickly becoming the nation’s most sought-after consumers. Iconic brands are re-examining their marketing strategies in order to stay competitive in the changing marketplace.

My job is essentially to be a problem-solver. There’s certainly enough to reach for, as the fragmented worlds of media and education require more focus, more engagement, more depth, more context. And in this rapidly changing world, answers are a moving target.

But that’s not the toughest part of my job. As in other things in life, the simplest things can be the most difficult. And quite simply, it is very difficult to adequately express thanks.

Our unpaid Board of Directors and lean staff could spend most of the day writing thank-you letters or making calls – and it simply wouldn’t be enough to express the gratitude we feel here for what citizens are supporting.

After we lost our lease at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the people of Hawai‘i and several mainland-based charitable foundations with ties to Hawaii gave us more than $30 million to establish a modern stand-alone multimedia center on Nimitz Highway at the entrance to Sand Island, PBS Hawai‘i’s Clarence T.C. Ching Campus. This nonprofit now owns an acre of land and a two-story building, which (thankfully) came in on time and on budget.

And still, after building us a new house, some viewers thank us. Here’s an example, from a woman who wrote by hand: “I hope you don’t get tired of my thank-you notes but I gotta say how much it means to me to watch [PBS Hawai‘i].” Here’s another hand-written note: “PBS Hawai‘i is contributing to society. I want PBS to continue this way. That’s why I make my donation.”

See what I mean? With a heart full of gratitude, I want you to know that we are dedicated to making the most out of your gift of a new building and your support of programming. We want to raise the bar on our stories and in quality in all areas, including our events for adults and keiki. We want to “be there” for our state – all of it, not just metropolitan Oahu. We want to be trusted for fairness and accuracy. And when we make mistakes, we want to own up and do better. Maybe that’s the best way to convey our thanks.

Also, we’re offering all the thousands of building donors a guided tour of the television station. Next month, after we complete technical troubleshooting, install a photovoltaic energy system and add donor signage, we’ll have an opening ceremony. But because of space concerns, we can’t invite all who made the building possible. So we invite NEW HOME donors to arrange a personal tour, now or later, by calling Christina Sumida at (808) 462-5045. Quite simply, we’d like to thank you in person.